Complementarity for a dynamical black hole

Journal Article · 01 October 2024 · Physical Review. D.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.110.086002 · OSTI ID:2452830

Concepcion, Benjamin  ^[1]; Nomura, Yasunori  ^[2]; Ritchie, Kyle  ^[1]; Weiss, Samuel ^[1]

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1. University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); RIKEN, Saitama (Japan); Univ. of Tokyo (Japan). Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI)

Black hole complementarity posits that the interior of a black hole is not independent from its Hawking radiation. This leads to an apparent violation of causality: the interior can be acausally affected by operators acting solely on the radiation. We argue that this perspective is misleading and that the black hole interior must be viewed as existing in the causal past of the Hawking radiation, despite the fact that they are spacelike separated in the semiclassical description. Consequently, no operation on the Hawking radiation—no matter how complex—can affect the experience of an infalling observer. The black hole interior and the radiation only appear spacelike separated in the semiclassical description because an infalling observer’s ability to access complex information is limited; the chaotic dynamics on the horizon, as viewed from the exterior, then converts any effect caused by such an observer to information in the Hawking radiation which cannot be accessed at the semiclassical level. We arrive at the picture described above by considering a unitary exterior description in which the flow of information is strictly causal, which we extend to apply throughout the entire history of black hole evolution, including its formation. This description uses the stretched event horizon as an inner edge of spacetime, on which the information inside is holographically encoded. We argue that the global spacetime picture arises from coarse graining over black hole microstates, and discuss its relationship with the exterior description.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231; SC0019380
• OSTI ID: 2452830
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D., Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 110; ISSN 2470-0010
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English